Presenting World, Meditation and Dance Music to uplift and creatively transform a planet in need of harmony.

MUSIC

MEDITATIONSwas produced by Carlos Pride to showcase the need for personal inner healing. The music transforms the listener into the tranquil world of nature’s elements infused with the ancient and sacred frequencies of Kalimba and Mbira. Cycles of sound are created to guide you to focus on the one (yourself). The sound flows into layers of beautiful Kalimba and Mbira harmonies with color and light correspondences. Dr. Albert Gunn

RESURRECTION SUITE

Resurrection Suite offers sensitive percussive, alter-call-at-the-bayou textural layerings taking us on a journey through space and time. Resurrection Suite drips with the moss from Louisiana and the heat of Mississippi’s Delta, that’s layered with Chicago funk on an African bed of rhythms.

DARK MOOD

Dark Mood uses sound frequencies and dynamics to awaken in the listener the side of the self that always lurks in the background. Fear of darkness is self imposed. As daylight drifts into darkness be careful of your conscious thoughts. Things do grow moody in the night.

BIOS

Carlos Pride

Master Percussionist

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago my mother was a piano player and taught music in the Chicago Public Schools for thirty five years. Records were always playing in our home, which sparked my love of music. When I was five years old my mother gave me a small guitar and a pair of bongos. I would spend most of my youth exploring them as well as a series of African thumb pianos. In my early teens I studied drums with Fred White (Earth Wind and Fire) and Famoudou Don Moye (Art Ensemble Of Chicago) and began playing in the Chicago Blues Clubs. Bassist J.W. Williams gave me my first blues gig as the drummer with his band “The Chi-Town Hustlers”. Over the next several years I would play with the late Valerie Wellington, Carlos Johnson, the late Lefty Dizz and Buddy Guy.

I met the late Frankie Knuckles in the early 1980’s. We were both members of the Imports Etc. Record Pool. Frankie taught me how to splice tape to make remixes. My love of dance music was born.

While attending the American Conservatory of Music I met Midawo Gideon Foli Alorwoyie, a master drummer from Accra, Ghana. Gideon introduced me to the Talking Drum. I also joined his group “The African American Unity Ensemble”. While performing with the ensemble I met the late Abubakari Lunna, a master drummer from Dagbon Ghana and a direct descendant of the creators of the “Luna” or “Ghana Talking Drum”.

Gideon and Abu exposed me to a world of rhythmic and melodic possibilities and inspired me to form my own ensemble “Rhythm Testament,” to explore the rhythms of my ancestors and incorporate them with modern instrumentation.

Over the years I have performed professionally in a wide variety of musical situations with various artists including:

Dr. Albert Gunn

Kalimba Master

In 1976, I was in a store when an object with metal keys first caught my attention. It was hand-held with different length metal keys. I inquired and was told it was an Mbira. I pushed down on the keys and my world changed instantly. The Mbira or commonly called the “African thumb piano”, became a major part of my life. I started playing and making the Mbira as if I had known it all my life. I entered medical school the fall of that same year, thus my marriage of music and medicine was formed.

Captivated by the sound of the Mbira, I used gourds as resonating chambers to amplify the sound quality of my instruments. Myself, along with my partner I AM Wright started selling them at art fairs throughout the Midwest and shortly thereafter orders started to really come in, and the business “Mbira Makers” was born. I finished medical school in 1980 and immediately upon graduation with four other partners opened the Fine Arts Naprapathic Center in Downtown Chicago. Using Music and Art as a major healing component in health, we thrived on Michigan Avenue, holding major Art Gallery Showings and Music Therapy Venues.

During this period I connected with master musicians the late Light Henry Huff and Khalfani Rivers forming the Sound Therapy Research Ensemble. Sound Therapy sessions were conceived by healing artist within the ensemble on November 12, 1984. We used mediation, yoga. tai-chi, and dance therapy, all as methods of bringing this unity into focus. Until his transition, the late Light Henry Huff led Sound Therapy Research Ensemble into ground breaking musical experiences. Our Meditation at Sunrise series became so popular it was featured on Warner Sanders CBS program SOMEONE YOU SHOULD KNOW.

Meditation has been an integral part of my life since the early 1970’s so having a way to use music to go into centering my minds-eye has been a very useful tool. Using two of Africa’s most ancient instruments, the Mbira and Kalimba, we have created sound vibrations to carry you in your upward journey toward resonance with all of life. Sound has been used throughout man’s journey to elevate, soothe, comfort, excite, and harmonize. In collaboration with Rhythm Testament’s founder Mr. Carlos Pride, we have crafted Mbira and Kalimba sounds in our first recording together. Meditate upon this.